Posture

 I am still thinking about a workshop I attended weeks ago at a studio that did not teach Iyengar yoga.

 I was sitting on my mat before class when a student put her mat beside mine and i looked over, she appeared to be around 10 but since her mom wasn't with her i will adjust that estimate to 19. I said something to her about Roger Cole and she said 'I don't even know who the teacher is, i am in the teacher training and it's required we are here'...  there was so much wrong with that statement for me that every muscle in my face froze.

  I will skip over my thought of getting up and going over to offer to create a diversion if he would like to make a run for it and move to the other thing, her slumping posture .

 Looking at her sitting in this way caused me to have a flashback to many years ago when i attended a workshop with a teacher who followed me around beating on my back while screaming obscenities (jk), at one point i looked up and the teacher was standing in front of me holding 2 long poles while their eyes calculated the cost/benefit ratio of sending someone to the store to buy super glue to have them permanently attached to my back. They discarded that thought, handed them to me, told me to put them across my upper back, under my armpits and hold them with my hands toward the ends, there was an implied 'for the rest of your life'.

 All of this caused the words 'If that teacher was here, they would be stalking you' to want to come out of my mouth so i started silently saying 'no, no don't say that' to myself while choking back a fit of the giggles that was trying to bubble up. My brain finally chipped in and i said 'he's great, you'll love him' as i turned back to the front while patting myself on the back for not grabbing her by both arms and yelling 'promise me you will attend class every week with roger cole for 2 years before you ever teach a class, promise me, promise me, promise me'. This took so much restraint on my part, i felt i deserved some kind of great restraint medal. She however did not look like she was planning our shopping trip to help me choose fabric for the ribbon on my cool new medal, she looked more like she was thinking 'how on earth did i end up sitting by this weird woman with the facial tic'.

 The point, as if there is one, is that i keep wondering how i would react to sitting in a class and have someone slumping walk in to teach. This is going to happen to students somewhere when she receives her piece of paper, 200 hrs, 500 hrs, whatever is not enough to reverse a lifetime of bad posture.  I don't actually notice my teacher's posture (they probably all just yelled 'why don't you start' in unison), they're not overly rigid like military nor are they slumped, there is no extreme to make me think what is up with their posture, they simply stand up straight.

 There was a time i would have said no way would i stay for the class but now i know that is not true. I sit in class while Geetaji instructs us to do the exact opposite of what she is doing, at the last yoganusasanum she spent a long time teaching the actions of the feet while her feet were doing the exact opposite, she even said nobody say then why are her feet like that, so i know that if Geetaji was slumping I would still feel grateful to attend her class. Which leaves me wondering just how i would react, i really have no idea so i am thinking i need to have that experience to know. I am now on the constant lookout for a 19 yr old slumping iyengar yoga teacher and I will let you know.